


The Future Prime Minister's Speech

by misura



Category: Fyra år till | Four More Years (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: David gets ready for the speech that will (hopefully) save his political career. Fia and Martin are there for moral support. Allegedly.
Relationships: David Holst/Martin Kovac
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	The Future Prime Minister's Speech

David felt like he was going to be sick.

Martin smiled at him, which helped, but then he handed over the final version of David's speech, which pretty much negated the effect. "This is it. Your big come-back. Nervous?"

_Does it count as being nervous when you feel like you want to throw up?_ David thought, but what he said, of course, was, "No," with a smile that had fooled many a man, woman and child.

Martin pursed his lips. "You're looking a little pale."

David would have liked to say something along the lines of _Gosh, do I really? Then perhaps I should put this off - just for a few more days,_ but before he could open his mouth, Fia appeared, followed by the ever-faithful Jorgen. (Well, faithful when he wasn't screwing other people's wives, though David supposed he hadn't really been in any position to throw stones.)

"Is that the latest version you've got there? Give it here, let me check."

"Oi," Martin said, while David meekly handed over the speech.

"No offense," Fia said. "It's just, you know what David's like. We can't have him screwing this up."

"Oh, I know indeed." Martin winked.

David felt himself getting a little annoyed. "I think I can be trusted to read a speech from a piece of paper."

Fia handed back the speech and said, "Of course you can, darling," in that tone that meant she was only humoring him. "Everything is going to be fine. So stop worrying, all right?"

"I'm not worried. Do I look like I'm worried?" he asked Martin, who gave him an exaggeratedly wide-eyed shake of his head. "See?"

"Martin's a socialist, David. Of course he's not going to tell you that you look worried," Fia said. "You can't trust him when it comes to your career."

"Oi," Martin said. "I'm beginning to feel a little offended now."

"Good. That should help with David's rating," Fia said.

_Screw my ratings, that's my boyfriend you're alienating,_ David wanted to say, gratified to realize he'd almost mean it, too: if his choices were between giving up politics for good and giving up Martin, he stood ready and willing to try and learn an honest trade.

"Now, here's the stuff you need to know for when people want to talk to you at the reception, after," Fia said, handing over what looked like about six hundred pages' worth of material. "Make sure you read it."

"Please tell me there are summaries."

Martin guffawed. Martin seemed to have a perfect memory as well as no one to nag him about speeches and receptions and if it hadn't been for Martin's boss calling him at least once a week while they were in the middle of having dinner, sex or a nice nap, David might have felt a little outclassed.

As it was, he still felt outclassed, but he also felt putting up with the phonecalls was a fair trade-off against Martin putting up with Jorgen and Fia and their well-intentioned fussing.

"Summaries at the end," Fia said. "Read the red bits, pretend to have read the yellow bits."

"Yes, yes, I know the drill." Getting through it all would still be a chore, but then, he hadn't gotten into politics because he'd thought it was going to be easy. (Well. Maybe he had, a little.) "What's this? Did you run out of red pens?"

"Pink are the things your boyfriend talked you into supporting. Blue is what you talked _him_ into supporting," Fia said. "This is very important, David. We don't want people to view you as some hussy who abandoned the ideals of the party for sex."

"Ah, no, we definitely don't want that," David said. Martin mouthed 'hussy' at him, his expression rather more delighted than David felt warranted by the situation.

"Here, may I see that?" Martin asked, reaching.

Fia snatched the papers away. Times like these were what she trained her arm muscles so much for, David supposed. He sighed and said, "Fia. Please. He's my ... friend."

Fia scoffed. "How are you going to sell yourself as a modern, open-minded, gay liberal if you keep talking like that? Honestly, David."

David rescued his papers, including the speech. "It'll be fine. What, you expect me to get up on that stage and tell everyone in the audience I love sucking socialist cock or something like that?"

Martin's entire face seemed to light up.

"I'm not going to do that," David said, but he was already imagining it now: everyone staring at him, some of them with open mouths, looking like idiots, and Martin waiting for him off-stage, ready to remind him that there were far more important things in his life now than politics.

_Bad idea,_ he told himself. _Very bad idea._

Martin coughed a bit. Fia glowered. "I should hope not. A lot of people are counting on you, David."

"I know," David said. "I won't let them down. I promise. I'll do my best."

"You'd better," Fia said, sounding only a little bit mollified.

"He'll be all right," Martin said. "Won't you, David?"

_As long as I have you,_ David thought, but that probably wasn't what Fia wanted to hear. "Yes. Of course. I mean, it's just a speech. What's the worst than can happen?"

Martin and Fia exchanged a look.

Martin looked away first. "Ah. Probably best not to get too explicit on stage, eh? You'll be talking to liberals, after all. They can be a little ... sensitive about things like that."

"Just say you're happy and that your personal life is none of their business - only don't say it like that! Be polite. Polite, but firm," Fia said.

"If anyone asks about sex, tell them you're very nobly sacrificing your virtue on the altar of liberalism," Martin suggested. "Or that you seduced me to make me see the error of my socialist ways."

"Ha, ha," David said. He realized that he might, in fact, throw up. With his luck, it'd be all over some local bigwig. "Anything else?"

Martin sighed. "You'll be fine, darling. I believe in you."

"So do I, and I've been married to you," Fia said. "Now go. You don't want to be late, do you?"

_I want to not be here,_ David thought, but he went, of course - if only because neither of them would have ever stopped nagging him about it if he hadn't.

(And, all right, also because, when it came right down to it, he did love politics.)


End file.
